


The Sound of Her Laughter

by Paganaidd



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Gen, Horde Prime POV, Hurt No Comfort, It gets it out of my head, Mind Control, Missing Scene, Post-Episode s5 Corridors, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27545182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paganaidd/pseuds/Paganaidd
Summary: What happened to Catra on Prime's ship after she saved Glimmer?A missing scene from between Corridors and Save the Cat.Inspired by the saying, "Men fear women will laugh at them. Women fear men will kill them."Prequel to my Unchained Heart series
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 80





	The Sound of Her Laughter

**Author's Note:**

> This is very dark and it is told from Horde Prime's POV.  
> Spoilers for Season 5.
> 
> It's a little graphic (but only a little). Please read the tags. Trigger warning for rape, sexual abuse, mind control, and torture.
> 
> Not something I normally write. I'm going to blame Horde Prime for all of this. 
> 
> It might help to go watch Save the Cat again when you're done.
> 
> It takes place in the same timeline as my other SPOP works.

A stone in one’s boot has an amazing way of focusing the attention. The friction point between pebble and skin becomes the center of one’s universe until it is corrected. Victims of terrible injuries may walk upon shredded limbs, pain cushioned by the mercy of shock, but the tiny repetitive irritation of the grain of sand against the skin can stop a strong person in their tracks.

And so it should be. To walk out of the desert on two broken limbs furthers the possibility of survival, but the small, apparently meaningless splinter works its way deep under the skin, bringing with it disorder, infecting the tissue, disrupting the function of the cells, eventually causing the limb to rot.

The sound of her laughter was such a stone. A tiny irritation that drew his attention, demanded correction before it could send decay through his perfectly balanced domain.

She knelt before his throne. So small. So frightened. The scent of cortisol and adrenaline wafted from her in waves so thick he could taste them. Her heart beat like a hummingbird’s and her cat’s pupils contracted to tiny slits in her panic.

And yet she _laughed_ at him.

“Well, what did you expect?” she crowed. “We Etherians are all so very emotional!” Did she dare to mock him? “But Glimmer is _gone._ And you will _never_ get your hands on Adora.”

She laughed as she sat at his feet, a creature who understood full well how close to death she was and _still_ she laughed.

No matter. She would learn. He had infinite patience.

He held her head while they cut her hair and the device was placed. “Unburden yourself to me, little sister,” he crooned as they placed the breathing tube and sank her under the thick amniotic fluid, while he sank into her mind to taste her memories. They were delicious. So young and so bitter. She thought she had known suffering. He would teach her differently.

He let her dream, curious to see the fantasy her mind would construct to protect her. The young blonde woman appeared as he’d predicted. She held out her hands and the cat child fled into her arms. _Adora, you came back._ They kissed gently, tentatively. _  
_

It was all so appallingly innocent.

The two of them tumbled together like puppies, holding hands, wrestling, sleeping curled around each other for warmth and comfort. Brushing lips chastely against the other’s cheek in a moment of daring. Stolen hours spent hidden on a roof. The other girl dreamed of ruling the world while Catra dreamed only of Adora. The child had no memories to work with beyond that. Her experience and education were so limited that even the wildest fantasies he could unearth in her imagination were mind-numbingly dull to his rarefied tastes. He would start with her fantasies though. He wanted to draw her awakening out. To savor it. He seldom indulged in this anymore, but he could admit it, her laughter stung. He would make her see her mistake.

Her physical body was brought to him damp from the Purification Chamber. He continued to let her mind roam free, following her down well-worn paths to the memories where she went for comfort. Since her imagination was so limited, he educated her flesh. She believed it was her beloved Adora who caressed her. They writhed together as he held her on his lap, her thin fur pelt sliding against his bare skin. He kissed her deeply and probed her nether lips with a gentle hand. She moaned and purred. Her heart beat in time to her desires.

_Adora. Adora. Adora._

He held her in that place of soft, youthful longing until she was just short of her apex.

“Catraa…” he murmured against her hair, allowing her to see the truth of where she was.

She froze in his arms and he smelled the change in her hormones, metallic fear replacing the rich musk of her desire. Her dilated pupils contracted to slits. She looked wildly around her, recognizing her state of undress and where she was. Where his hands touched her. 

He felt her frustrated instinct to strike out with tooth and claw and regretted that he didn’t have more information about her kind’s specific anatomy and sexual response. It would have been amusing to make her climax through her terror. Another time, perhaps.

Although he would not let her move, he allowed her speech. “Adora..?” She croaked as though she were confused. The Purification often had that effect. 

“Adora isn’t here, yet,” Prime whispered, slowly withdrawing the two fingers that had been within her. “We have some time before she joins us.” He resettled her unmoving form across his naked lap and drew his forefinger across her clavicle, applying enough pressure to leave a thin cut that bubbled up a little blood. 

And then the unthinkable happened. Through the cringing horror and humiliation of her debasement, she _laughed at him,_ a cruel sound like broken glass on raw nerves. “I told you. She won’t come back for me! She’s running as fast as she can and you will _never_ get your hands on them.”

“Oh, little sister. Look how she has abandoned you.” Prime said gently, bending down to kiss her while she shrank from him. 

Impossibly, she laughed again, a thin little snort, even as she trembled and wept. “Yeah, but you still fucked up. You can’t use me to get her.”

“Perhaps, little sister. But then, I still have many other uses for you.” Feeling that he had been too patient for too long, he reached out with his will, thrusting his spirit into her. The screaming inside her mind soothed the faint irritation of her laughter.

He possessed her for a time. She stood stiffly in his throne room as he searched her consciousness, unspooling her desires, her passions, her fears, her rage, her grief, her pain. Prime shone his light on her painful single-mindedness. The poverty of her dreams. Her wishes for the future contained such pathetically simple yet unattainable wants. Her only desire was for the one who left her. The one who broke her heart. Every fantasy was the same. Adora would come, they would flee together, they would make love. Prime watched the imagined iterations of Catra’s quotidian adolescent longing, harshly illuminating the mean, hard-scrabble nature of her heart. 

“You have suffered so much already, little sister. But perhaps that is not too surprising since all you do is deal out pain. ” Prime said, returning to himself. “I can take that all away. I can give you peace.”

“Heh.” Catra’s laughter was quiet now, merely a chuckle that rasped over a dry tongue as it licked her parched lips. “So, she’s still not here. I guess you’re just shitty at traps”

“Do not mock me, little sister. That is a dangerous game.” Prime warned her softly. The child would have to be corrected. He followed her thoughts to the dark places that she feared, places where suffocation, shadows, and madness lurked. 

The poor little creature screamed until her voice failed. Mercifully, her croaks were stopped by Prime’s will before her vocal cords began to bleed. His heart ached for her as she suffered so needlessly. 

Time passed. He had her bathed and clothed. Prime was kind to her. He allowed her to sleep periodically and to drink the nutritive amniotic fluid at intervals much more frequent than his clones. Her inefficient biology required so many calories. He indulged himself with her often, forcing her to replay every memory of She Ra to gain intelligence. But just as often he indulged himself in her imagined reunions with her would-be lover, enjoying her dismay each time she found the scenario merely illusory.

At last, the object of her affection appeared on their scans. “Your Adora has returned.” He told her, rousing her from one of the sleeps he’d allowed her to take on the floor of his throne room. 

The child shook her head. “No,” she whispered, but she did not laugh at him this time. She was capable of learning that much. “You’re lying. She wouldn’t come back for me.”

“Oh, but she did, little sister. And now it’s time to meet with her.” 

Adora’s bravado was amusing in a small way. More satisfying was the cat child’s anguish as she fought the other girl. Her attempts to understand whether this was a real event or merely a shadow play in her mind gave the whole exercise a delightful edge of uncertainty. 

Somewhere in the fight, the control device was damaged. Agony ripped through her as she fought Prime for control of her body. 

Through the pain, maniacal laughter bubbled up from Catra’s throat. Prime clamped down hard on it, reasserting his will, replacing her laughter with his. Distressingly, it did not last. The damage to the control device proved to be too much and the defective little animal slipped his control. 

She. Would. Not. Stop. _Laughing._

Enough. 

He possessed her completely, thrusting his spirit into her so that she wailed in agony in the blinding nova of his mind.

“Disappointing.” He spoke to Adora through Catra’s mouth and savored the despair in the false hero's eyes. _She_ was not laughing at him. “Some creatures are only destined for destruction.” 

And then he let Catra fall. 

That should have been the end of her but the Rebel’s beacon of hope finally made her appearance. At least now he had drawn her out of hiding where he could destroy her for good.

He did not need to target her directly. Not yet. He had infinite patience and infinite resources. She was too bound to the people she loved. He would take all of that away from her. She would understand her folly. He had done this a billion times on a billion planets. He would destroy them all.

And yet, the sound of the cat-child's laughter nagged at him. Not in countless years had any being mocked him to his face. She was no threat, but he could not stop dwelling on the irritant. It was like a sore in the mouth that one cannot stop poking with one’s tongue. She was a fleck in his eye. A seed in his teeth. A stone in his boot.


End file.
